Diario de marilolivaldes

I chose to visit the "Cinta Costera" part of a nearby coastal park for our second naturalist stroll. This park offers children's activities, a place for bikes and scooters, and even some places to relax. Since it is surrounded by greenery and is well-known, I thought it would be fascinating to go examine it in more depth. I discovered several angiosperm species, vascular seedless plants, and even non-vascular plants. In an effort to identify as many different plant species as possible, my friends and I strolled for almost two hours. Surprisingly, the weather was bright but not very warm and quite windy. As usual, it's incredibly humid due to yesterday's rain. There are flowers all around Panama, and I even managed to discover a few mushrooms there. Really enjoyed our stroll today! I came to understand that in Panama, we frequently take our surroundings' abundance of flora for granted.

Today I decided to try again, and I proceeded to El Parque Recreativo Omar, one of the oldest and largest public parks in Panama, for this attempt. Even though it has activities for children, it is covered in verdant spaces and ancient, towering trees. I anticipated discovering fungi due to the magnitude of this park. We walked for approximately 45 minutes and were able to identify four distinct species. When I asked people who work there caring for the environment, they explained that it has something to do with our seasons. There are essentially only two seasons in this region: the rainy season (May to November) and the dry season (December to April). However, they have a significant impact on the country as a whole, in the sense that, during the arid season, desertification is evident and access to water is severely restricted. In contrast, the rainy season has just begun, which means thunderstorms. For example, we had an electrical  storm last night. Because the seasons are changing and we are just beginning to recover from the drought, and because fungi flourish in humid and moist environments, this could explain why there are fewer of them. I felt compelled to mention this because I found it intriguing. Regarding our class material, I was able to locate these fungi in the roots of ancient, leafy trees. I am pleased to report that I was able to locate some, despite the fact that it was by no means a simple task. Today was extremely damp, and my companion and I got completely soaked searching for these fungi. Additionally, there was a great deal of humidity, but the sky cleared around 4:30 pm as usual. See you next time !

Dear reader, I'm Mariloli, a 20-year-old Panama City resident. Our first task with Inaturalist for my ECOEVO summer course was to spend 30 minutes scouting the area for any fungus. Since the first site I intended to investigate was in and around my neighborhood, I have to admit that I knew before I started that this would be a difficult undertaking. I basically live in a neighborhood with a golf course nearby, lots of woodlands, and a variety of animals and flora, all of which I was certain I wanted to photograph. I was certain that I could locate several species to catalog. But as I continued to travel, I grew impatient since I had trouble spotting mushrooms. I questioned my parents about it, and they said that since there are a lot of pets and young children there, management usually removes fungus from the area. Moreover, for the golf course's aesthetics and the general state of the land. In any case, they presumably employ fungicides to manage them. On my first stroll, I was able to locate one fungus, but I still wanted to mention what I discovered for documenting sake. Although it was rather hot today, clouds did, as usual, start to form around 4 o'clock. I walked for about 40 minutes today and wanted to underline that I'll attempt again tomorrow to identify more species and fungus related to this week's material.